


Eternal Sunshine of the Solaced Mind

by Attic_Nights



Series: Kisses Collected Across the Alternate 'verses [3]
Category: Psych
Genre: AU, Afghanistan, Alternate Universe, Blood and Injury, Dark, First Kiss, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Vignette, but not as dark as the tags make it seem, smiles and hope, still no pineapples
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-05-27
Packaged: 2018-01-26 18:17:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1697903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attic_Nights/pseuds/Attic_Nights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shawn uses his keen vision to help protect his unit out in the Afghani warzone. But nobody’s perfect, except in the eyes of others. </p><p>(Also known as the token fic that uses disjointed figurative language in an attempt to foster feels.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eternal Sunshine of the Solaced Mind

**Author's Note:**

> The second in my collection of Alternate Universe fics, all of which explore Shawn and Lassiter's first kisses within a clichéd environment. They are separate, stand-alone tales, and as such can be read individually. 
> 
> _Psych_ belongs to Steve Franks, and praise be to Moondragon23's beta work. Any remaining errors are my own.

Carlton Lassiter still remembers the first time he discharged a gun without proper hearing protection. The slam of one hundred and sixty-three decibels did shoot between both eardrums while the more tangible bullet discharged from the .41 Magnum revolver and into the skull of the enemy. His ears had rung for days, talking louder than normal with a begrudged grumpy “what?” all the time. He had been eighteen. One bullet. There have been many bullets since then, from both sides. Gunpowder was a loud bastard who beat you up and left you reeling no matter on whose side you were. They didn’t teach you that, like they didn’t teach you this.

 

The cosmos was vibrating. Air, heavy and dull, strummed like a guitar string.

There had been a flash of light. That was all the warning they’d had before the mine detonated.

It was his own damn fault. The heat, the pain and the winded feeling in his chest rallied together to slap on the blame as if to say ‘This is what you ordered, Sir’ and offer no refunds, only a cheque. Officer Spencer had told him that this route was too dangerous, that even he could not see everything. But there hadn’t been time: the enemy was closing in on them. Hours— minutes before they had heard the gunfire, the shelter still too far away.

He looked around the red scorched and spinning earth. Corporal O’Hara’s mouth was moving, yelling, screaming silently. Perhaps she was making noise, he couldn’t tell. Perhaps her throat was gone, he couldn’t tell. All he could feel was thick breaths and tinnitus.

Oh, his comrades were strewn about him, some now just a tangle of bones and fabric and fresh slick blood. Some moved, but hope was dying.

Shawn Spencer. The stupid, sharp-eyed kid was still. Too loud, even now; he grabbed the boy’s shoulder where he lay and felt his heart pumping through his breast pocket. Thrum, thrum.

He looked at the kid with the world ablaze around him. He felt his breath ignite, the sensation boiling up from the pit of his belly to the back of his parched throat. Spencer blinked at him, slowly, like a cloud moving across the sun. He cracked a smile, and it made him furious that even now Spencer didn’t have the sense to stop joking. To be afraid like they all were.

Were. As he crawled over and took Spencer’s head in his arms, he was afraid. Not of dying, but of the smile dying. An irrational fear that if Spencer died, the whole concept of a smile would die with him. Like a word dying with its creator. If the smile could depart before Spencer, go to someone else, or hitchhike… maybe that would be all right. In a perfect world, Spencer would sanctimoniously leave a legacy and have it not follow him to the grave.

Like he should be so lucky.

He hovered over smiling, bloodstained lips and saw a whisper, but he could not hear it, not while the air still screamed, sponging up all other frequencies. He fancied himself stealing a smile from those very lips, since words could no longer be spoken or heard. Spencer struggled closer, sharing hot air between them. A first and last kiss. He breathed.

Spencer went slack. He felt Sergeant Guster’s arms pull him away. Saw Officer McNab stagger forward with his head agash. Smelt O’Hara’s rose petal soap. Tasted Spencer’s blood on his own lips. It was only when McNab smiled back that he realized he himself was smiling. A small, shocked and silent smile, but a smile nonetheless. It was not stolen, but given. It gave him hope in the looming shadow of reality. They moved.

As ants across the desert they ran upon the sun.

 


End file.
